Wego, formerly known as Bezurk, is a Singaporean travel

metasearch engine A metasearch engine (or search aggregator) is an online information retrieval tool that uses the data of a web search engine to produce its own results. Metasearch engines take input from a user and immediately query search engines for results. S ...

based in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. It operates 76 country sites ( CcTLD) in over 22 languages and local currencies. Wego displays travel rate results in real time from over 700 travel sites, so users can shop and compare flight and hotel prices available online. Wego displays a combination of local and international airfares and hotel search results from online travel agencies (OTA), airlines and hotels on desktop or travel app for iOS and Android. Once a user has selected their preference, they are redirected to the travel supplier to complete their booking.

History

Bezurk (now Wego) was founded in Singapore in 2005 by Ross Veitch and Craig Hewett. In January 2008, Wego received Series A funding of US$4.5 million from News Digital Media, the Australian digital arm of News Limited. In May 2008, Bezurk was rebranded to Wego citing that the name was "hard to remember and spell". In December 2010, the company secured US$13million in Series B funding from Tiger Global Management. In 2013, Wego launched its Bangalore, Jakarta, and Dubai regional offices. In June 2013, Wego closed its Series C funding round of US$17 million from Tiger Global Management, Crescent Point Group and SquarePeg Capital. In October 2015 Wego closed series D US$11 million from existing investors Tiger Global Management and Crescent Point Group. In August 2017, the company closed a Series E round of US$12 million from Middle East Broadcasting Center. In 2018, six years into its initial penetration into the Middle Eastern market, Wego has since seen its revenue soared to US$1 billion worth of gross travel bookings across its entire business. In 2019, Wego was named by the World Economic Forum and the Bahrain Economic Development Board as one of the 100 most promising Arab start-ups shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Market activity

Wego's core markets are in the Asia Pacific,

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. Wego travel app currently ranks within the top five of the most popular app in the iOS and Playstore travel category for Middle Eastern region. Wego partners up with various smartphone manufacturers (Samsung being a prime example) to have their app come preinstalled. Each month Wego sends flight and hotel booking referrals worth US$1.5B to its travel partners. In addition to partnerships with hotels, airlines and OTAs, Wego continuously collaborates with tourism boards of various countries, such as Singapore, South Korea, Jordan, Macao and many others, to increase travel demands to and from said countries. In June 2014, the company launched Wego's Private Marketplace providing advertisers access to Wego's travel audiences via programmatic buying. The trading desk operates with DSP partners from the US and UK, including Xaxis, Amnet and RadiumOne, and others in the Asia Pacific, Macau and the Middle East.

References

{{Travel ticket search engines Travel ticket search engines Singaporean travel websites Transport companies established in 2005 Internet properties established in 2005 2005 establishments in Singapore